Chapter cv., which consists only of two verses, cannot be dated;

while cviii. is, according to Charles, an appendix to the entire work.

While these dates may be regarded as approximately correct, it should be pointed out that there is not a complete consensus of opinion among scholars on the subject. Schürer, for example, holds that the entire book, with the exception of chapters xxxvii.-lxxi., was written during the period B.C. 130-100, these other chapters being not earlier than the time of Herod the Great. Beer thinks that the “Dream Visions” belong to the time of John Hyrcanus (B.C. 135-105), and he includes under the pre-Maccabæan portions only xci. 12-17, xcii., xciii. 1-14; but he agrees with Charles in thinking that the book as a whole belongs to a period prior to B.C. 64. Dalman maintains that it cannot be proved that the important section xxxvii.-lxxi. (“The Similitudes”) is “the product of the pre-Christian period,” though he fully recognizes its Jewish character.[280]

As to the question of authorship; since the book is made up of sections belonging to various dates, it is obvious that unity of authorship is not to be looked for. But if there is not unity, there is, so Charles maintains, uniformity of authorship; for, according to him, all the sections were written by _Chassidim_, or by their successors, the Pharisees. An entirely different view of authorship has, however, recently been put forth with much skill by Leszynsky.[281] While frankly recognizing the composite character of the book, he holds that the original portions of it (according to him these are: i.-xxxvi., lxxii.-lxxxii., lxxxiii.-xc., xciii. xci. 12-17) to have emanated from Sadducæan circles, and that the special object of the book in its original form was that of bringing about the reform of the calendar.[282] He points first of all to the ascription of the book to Enoch as supporting his contention; Enoch lived 365 years, i.e. his years correspond to the number of days in the solar year, which, as we have seen, was one of the fundamental differences between the Sadducees and Pharisees, these latter reckoning time by the lunar year. Further, Enoch ascended into the heavens and would therefore be just the one to know all about the heavenly luminaries; he was thus the most appropriate author of a book which was to deal with astronomical questions. “The Sadducæan character of the original work,” says Leszynsky, “is seen most clearly in the discussion regarding the calendar; chapter lxxii.-lxxxii. are rightly called the Book of Astronomy[283]: ‘the book of the courses of the luminaries of the heaven, the relations of each, according to their classes, their dominion and their seasons, according to their names and places of origin, and according to their months ... with regard to all the years of the world and unto eternity, till the new creation is accomplished which endureth till eternity’ (lxxii. 1). That sounds almost as though the author of the Book of Jubilees had written it. That it is not a merely scientific interest which impels the writer to give expression to his astronomical theories may be seen from the words at the conclusion of the section: ‘Blessed are all the righteous, blessed are all those who walk in the way of righteousness, and sin not as the sinners in the reckoning of all their days, in which the sun traverses the heaven, entering into and departing from the portals for thirty days ...’ (lxxxii. 4-7). Herein one can discern quite clearly the tendency of the writer. He desires the adoption of the solar year, while his contemporaries wrongly followed a different reckoning and therefore celebrated the feasts at the wrong time. The ‘sinners who sin in the reckoning of the year’ are the Pharisees; and the righteous ones who are blessed, the _Zaddîkim_,[284] who walk upon the paths of righteousness (_Zedek_), as the name was made to imply, were the Sadducees.” Leszynsky works out his argument in much detail, the study of the whole of which is necessary to grasp the full force of his contention. The other portions of the book he does not hold to be Sadducæan. In the concluding portion he sees a bitter polemic by a Pharisee against the Sadducees (see especially cii. 6 ff.). Regarding the important section called the “Similitudes” (xxxvii.-lxxi.) Leszynsky has nothing definite to suggest other than that it is not Christian, still less Jewish. He says: “We know too little about the sects which existed about the time of the beginning of Christianity to be able to say to what circle the author of this writing belonged.”

The contentions of Charles and Leszynsky are thus diametrically opposed. To the present writer the great difficulty in accepting either as it stands lies in the fact that, broadly speaking, the Apocalyptic Literature, of which the Book of Enoch is the most striking example we possess, was acceptable to neither Pharisees nor Sadducees. No doubt Charles is right in assigning the earlier portions of the book (i.e. the pre-Maccabæan) to the _Chassidim_; but we have sought, in an earlier chapter,[285] to show that Friedländer is justified in maintaining that the _Chassidim_ were the forbears of both Apocalyptists and Pharisees, two branches of the parent stock which diverged widely in spite of some fundamental points of family likeness. The Book of Enoch, therefore, may, in its pre-Maccabæan portions, well be ascribed to the _Chassidim_; but it is not on that account necessary to ascribe all the later portions to the Pharisees; three points especially militating against this: the Messianic doctrine, the, generally speaking, universalistic spirit, and the attitude to the Law not being the Pharisaic one.[286] The Apocalyptists, on the other hand, were also the descendants of the _Chassidim_; and no sufficient reason exists for not ascribing the bulk of the later portions of our book to them. Regarding Leszynsky’s view, while we feel that that part of it is justified which ascribes to the Sadducees the “Book of Astronomy” (lxxii.-lxxxii.) and possibly certain other portions, there is a grave difficulty in regarding such parts as i.-xxxvi. and xciii., xci. 12-17, in which the apocalyptic element is prominent, as of Sadducæan origin, for nothing that we know of the Sadducees leads us to suppose that they cultivated apocalyptic studies. What we feel to be of extreme importance in assigning authorship to Jewish books belonging to the last two pre-Christian centuries is the fact well expressed by Friedländer: “... But who would maintain that these two parties, i.e. the Pharisees and Sadducees, constituted in reality the Jewish people at this period, however much they may have been pushed into the foreground of historical events? The Pharisees and Sadducees, no less than the Essenes, who were far removed from the sphere of politics, were only sects of the Jews. The Pharisees formed, even on Josephus’ showing (_Antiq._, XVII, ii. 4), only a fraction of the people, and did not number much more than six thousand all told; they were thus not much more numerous than the Essenes with their four thousand (Philo, _Quod omn. prob._, II, 457; Josephus, _Antiq._, XVIII, i. 5). And if it be willingly granted that the Pharisees had many adherents among the people, yet this was very far from being the People itself.... And where remain then the great masses of the ‘people of the land,’ the really deciding factor, who were neither Pharisæan nor Sadducæan, but among whom the Jewish spirit-of-the-people (_Volksgeist_), developed under favourable conditions during the memorable days of the Ptolemys, was not yet wholly extinguished and still possessed sufficient power to protect itself against the yoke which Pharisaism sought to put upon the people?”[287]

It is not necessary to assume that all the literature produced by the Jews during these centuries emanated either from Pharisaic or Sadducæan circles. There are other alternatives; and in the present case it seems most probable that the bulk of this book was written by apocalyptists who belonged neither to Pharisaic nor yet to Sadducæan circles.

The Book of Enoch was originally written partly in Aramaic (vi.-xxxvi., lxxxiii.-xc., according to Charles) and partly in Hebrew (the rest of the book). No portion of the book in its original form has come down to us; the Ethiopic version is the only complete one extant, it was translated from the Greek version of which only fragments remain.[288] The Latin version, which was also made from the Greek, is not extant with the exception of i. 9, cvi. 1-18. That the book is Palestinian is generally acknowledged; its original language of itself points to this.

The Book of Enoch is in many respects the most important of all the apocalypses, since it is without a rival for the history of doctrinal development during the last two pre-Christian centuries. The teaching of the book is sometimes contradictory, which is not to be wondered at in view of its composite authorship; for example, in lxix. 11 it is said that man was originally created without sin, “like the angels,” but that death came through sin and destroyed him; but elsewhere the entering in of sin from the first is traced to the spiritual world. The doctrines of angels and demons appear in a developed form in this book. The teaching concerning the Kingdom is likewise contradictory; vi.-xxxvi. are full of materialistic ideas, whereas xci.-civ. are marked by conceptions which are entirely spiritual. So, too, with regard to the Messiah; at one time He is represented as without having any special _rôle_ to fill, at another He appears as the “Righteous One,” or as the “Elect One,” “The Son of Man,” and “The Christ” or “Anointed One.” Regarding the Last Things, the teaching about the Judgement varies according as to whether the Messianic Kingdom is conceived of as an eternal earthly kingdom, in which case the final Judgement precedes it, or as only a temporary earthly kingdom, when the Judgement takes place at its close; in xxxvii.-lxxi. (“The Similitudes”) it is taught that the Messianic Kingdom is eternal and embraces heaven and earth, here it is initiated by the final Judgement. The punishment of the wicked takes place in Sheol, part of which is a place of fire, and equivalent to the later Gehenna conception; another part of Sheol is described as an intermediate resting-place of the righteous. In the oldest portions of the book both soul and body, a physical body, rise and abide eternally in the earthly Messianic Kingdom; in “The Similitudes” it is a spiritual body which rises to a spiritual kingdom; while in the latest section of the book it is taught that only the spirit rises, and only the righteous attain to the resurrection.

Most of the New Testament writers have been influenced by the book in thought and diction. “It is quoted as a genuine production of Enoch by St. Jude (verses 14, 15), and as Scripture by St. Barnabas. The authors of the Book of Jubilees, the Apocalypse of Baruch, and 4 Ezra laid it under contribution. With the earlier Fathers and Apologists it had all the weight of a canonical book.”[289]

(_b_) THE SIBYLLINE ORACLES

[LITERATURE.—Schürer, II, iii. pp. 270-292, German ed., III, pp. 555-592; Blass, in Kautzsch, II, pp. 177-217; Lanchester, in Charles, II, pp. 368-406; M. S. Terry has published this book in blank verse (New York, undated). See also an article on this book in the _Edinburgh Review_, July, 1877, pp. 31-67.]

This work consisted originally of fourteen books, twelve of which have survived; but we are here concerned only with the Proœmium and books iii.-v., the remainder belonging to later times. The Proœmium and books iii.-v. belong, like the rest of the work, to different dates, but the bulk of the Proœmium and book iii. belong to about the middle of the second century B.C., books iv. and v. to the latter half of the first century A.D. These portions are all Jewish in the main, though interspersed with Christian elements.

Of authorship little can be said; the main portion of the Proœmium and book iii. were probably written by a Jew of Alexandria, parts of book iv. by a Palestinian Jew, and the bulk of book v. also by a Jew of Alexandria. The Oracles were, of course, all written in Greek, and they were put forth in the interests of Jewish _propaganda_, of which mention has already been made above. They were written in the form of the ancient heathen oracles, in Greek hexameters. The sibyl of heathen antiquity was a prophetess inspired by the gods who prophesied about the fate of cities and kingdoms, and gave counsel in times of stress and difficulty; she dwelt, like a nymph, beside streams or in grottoes. “Written records of supposed Sibylline oracles,” says Schürer, “were here and there in circulation; but such remains of them as have come down to us through occasional quotations in authors such as Plutarch, Pausanias and others are brief and scanty, and furnish no distinct notion of them. In Asia Minor and Greece these pieces circulated only in private possession, without being publicly supervised or officially used; but their credit and influence must not be on that account lightly estimated.”[290] Book iii., which is of most importance in the present connection, is full of apocalyptic elements; it tells of the fate of the successive kingdoms which are to bear rule over the Jews, and of the judgements of God upon both Jews and Gentiles; the coming of the Messianic king is prophesied, and the victory over his adversaries described; an account of the prosperity and blessedness of the Messianic Kingdom follows, to which is added a recital of the signs which shall herald the end of all things:

When swords upon the star-lit heavens Appear at even and at morn, Then will the whirlwind come from heaven Upon the earth; the sun above At mid-day e’en will cease to shine, The moon instead will give her light, And come again upon the earth. One sign will be that drops of blood Will flow down from the very rocks; And in the clouds shall ye behold A conflict fought ’twixt warriors fierce, Likewise a chase upon wild beasts,— All seemingly in hazy mist. Then shall the Lord Who dwells in heaven Bring all things to their final end (iii. 798-806).

In book iv., as well as in book v., the apocalyptic element is absent, with the one exception that in the latter there is a prophecy of woe upon the idolatrous Gentiles, and of blessing upon Israel (v. 260-285). The superiority of Judaism over the heathen religions is, as one would expect in propagandist literature of this kind, again and again insisted upon.

(_c_) THE TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS

[LITERATURE.—Sinker, _Testamenta xii. Patriarcharum_ ... (1869); _Ante-Nicene Christian Library_, xxii. pp. 13-79 (1871); Schürer, II, iii., pp. 114-124; German ed., III, pp. 339-356; Schnapp, in Kautzsch, II, pp. 458-506; Charles, _The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs_ (1908), also in _The Apocr. and Pseudepigr. of the Old Testament_, II, pp. 282-367; Leszynsky, _Die Sadduzäer_, pp. 237-252 (1921). Burkitt, _Jewish and Christian Apocalypses_, pp. 34 ff. (1914). Two articles in _The Jewish Quarterly Review_, V, pp. 375-398, by Conybeare, “On the Jewish Authorship of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” and pp. 400-406 by Kohler on “The Pre-Talmudic Haggada” (1893).]

Professor Charles says in reference to the authorship of this book: “I have with some hesitation come to the conclusion that the groundwork is the work of a single writer of the Pharisaic school. He is an upholder of the Law and the Temple sacrifices; he believes in the Messianic Kingdom and the resurrection of the body to a new life therein. He is, however, a Pharisee of the early type—that is a Chasid.... The groundwork, which consists of about eleven-twelfths of the Testaments, after the removal of the Jewish and Christian additions, presents, it must be confessed, a want of coherence at times, and the parts dealing with the duty of submission to Levi, or to Levi and Judah jointly, come in occasionally very abruptly. Notwithstanding, the present editor adheres to the idea of the unity of the book; for the two phenomena referred to—the strictly Chasid element in the book, and its loyal acceptance of the Maccabæan dynasty—were exactly characteristic of the period to which our author belongs, and to none other before or after. Furthermore, both these parts of the book are alike universalistic in tone.”[291]

We have seen above what the attitude of the Sadducees was towards the written Law; so that a book wherein loyalty to the Law and to the Temple sacrifices is upheld does not necessarily point to Pharisaic authorship unless it can be shown that by the Law is meant not merely the Pentateuch, but also the Pharisaic conception of the Law; and of this there are no indications in the book. The Sadducees believed, moreover, in a Messianic Kingdom; but the Messiah, according to them, was to be of priestly, not of Davidic, descent; so that belief in the Messianic Kingdom does not necessarily imply Pharisaic authorship of the book in which it occurs unless the specifically Pharisaic conception of the Messiah is put forth; but this also is not the case in the book before us. Charles says: “In the original work the Messiah is to be descended from Levi, and not from Judah—in other words, he is to be first of all a priest, and then a prophet and king. There are many passages expressing this view”; these are enumerated; he then continues: “We have here the attestation of a most remarkable revolution in the Jewish expectations of the Messiah. For some thirty or forty years the hopes of a Messiah from Judah was abandoned in favour of a Messiah from Levi. But with the breach of Hyrcanus with the Pharisees this hope was abandoned, and so we find that in the first century additions, the hope of a Messiah from Judah reappears (T. Jud., xxiv. 5, 6; T. Naph., iv. 5 (?)).”[292] An easier and more natural explanation, however, is forthcoming if, as we believe, the groundwork of this book is of Sadducæan authorship. The loyal acceptance of the reigning dynasty is by no means necessarily a proof of Pharisaic authorship, for the Pharisees broke entirely with John Hyrcanus before the end of his reign (B.C. 104), while the Sadducees were loyal to him in consequence.[293] The references to the resurrection of the body would be fatal to Sadducæan authorship if it could be proved that these are not later interpolations. That a Pharisee has worked over the book is abundantly evident. We conclude, therefore, that as in the groundwork of the book the distinctive marks of Pharisaism are wanting, and that as what marks there are, are those of a Sadducæan character, the book in its original form was written by a Sadducee for the purpose of making peace with the Pharisees; for the peaceable tone of many parts of the book is one of its characteristics; the virtue of unity among the descendants of the Patriarchs is again and again insisted on. _Traits_ of a specifically Sadducæan character are well brought out by Leszynsky.[294] On the other hand, nothing could be more un-Pharisaic than the spirit of the book so well described by Charles: “A true son of the larger-hearted Old Testament prophets he proclaims the salvation of the Gentiles. The promised time has come. The kingdom is already established, and all the Gentiles will be saved through Israel. In the Judgement the conduct of the best heathen will form the norm according to which Israel will be judged.”[295]

The earliest form of the book as now in existence is Greek; but this is a translation from a Hebrew original. This is proved by the presence of numberless Hebrew constructions and expressions throughout the book. In its original form each of the “Testaments” seems to have been modelled on the same pattern; in each case the patriarch first gives an account of his life; this is based on the Old Testament, but embellished with many new details. In each autobiography the patriarch candidly confesses the sins of which he has been guilty, though in some instances he is able to boast of his virtues. In the next place, the patriarch offers in each case an exhortation to his descendants; this is based on the preceding autobiographical sketch; warnings are uttered against falling into the sins of which the narrator himself has been guilty; in the case of his life having been a virtuous one it is held out as an example for his descendants to follow. A third element in each of the Testaments is a prediction regarding the future of the tribe in question.

There are a number of later Christian interpolations and additions in the book; but, generally speaking, these are of so obvious a character that they may be discerned at once; a good example is found in the Testament of Simeon vi. 7, where these words are added: “Because God hath taken a body and eaten with men, and saved men.” Or, again, in the Testament of Levi xiv. 2, the original text runs: “For our father Israel is pure from the transgressions of the chief priests,” then the following Christian addition is made: “Who shall lay their hands upon the Saviour of the world.” Similar additions, as well as interpolations, occur throughout the book.

But the great importance of this book lies in its ethical teaching, wherein it often reveals a spirit thoroughly akin to that of the Gospels; it will be best to illustrate this by giving two of the most notable examples. In the Testament of Gad vi. 3-7 it is said: “Love ye, therefore, one another from the heart; and if a man sin against thee, cast forth the poison of hate and speak peaceably to him, and in thy soul hold not guile; and if he confess and repent, forgive him. But if he deny it, do not get into a passion with him, lest catching the poison from thee he take to swearing and so thou sin doubly.... But if he be shameless, and perisheth in his wrong-doing, even so forgive him from the heart, and leave to God the avenging” (with this compare Matt. xviii. 15, Luke xvii. 3). The command to love God and one’s neighbour finds expression in the Testament of Gad v. 3: “Love the Lord through all your life, and one another with a true heart” (cp. Matt. xxii. 37-39). These and many other examples of a similar character are all the more striking when it is seen how close the linguistic parallels are (amounting frequently to verbal identity) between the Greek text of our book and that of the Gospels. While these and similar passages read like genuine parts of the original work the _possibility_ that they may be Christian is not excluded.

The “Testaments” can scarcely be reckoned as belonging to the Apocalyptic Literature proper, but there are apocalyptic elements in the testaments of Levi and of Naphthali.

(_d_) THE PSALMS OF SOLOMON

[LITERATURE.—Ryle and James, _The Psalms of Solomon_ (1891); Kittel, in Kautzsch, II, pp. 127-148; Schürer, II, iii. pp. 17-23, German ed., III, pp. 205-212; Viteau, _Les Psaumes de Salomon_ (1911); Rendel Harris, _The Odes and Psalms of Solomon_ (1911); Leszynsky, _Op. cit._, pp. 274-279; Buchanan Gray in Charles, II, pp. 631-652. See also Charles’ art. in the _Encycl. Bibl._, i. 241-245.]

Although the eighteen psalms comprised in this book are not apocalyptic in character, a brief mention of them here is not out of place, for they offer us a true picture of the Pharisaic standpoint, and are therefore useful for purposes of comparison when seeking to decide the Pharisaic authorship, or otherwise, of other books.

These psalms were originally written in Hebrew during the middle of the first century B.C.; concerning these two points there is a general consensus of opinion. Whether the hand of one or more writers is to be discerned is an open question. The mental background of these Psalms is one of sorrow occasioned by the capture of Jerusalem by Pompey and his desecration of the Temple. But this event is represented as the just punishment of God, for instead of a Davidic king the Hasmonæans were rulers, and they had assumed the high-priestly office although they were not of high-priestly descent. The ruling house was supported by the Sadducees; it is this which causes the sorrow of the writer, or writers, to be mixed with bitter resentment. These Psalms thus give us a picture of the Pharisees and Sadducees, but from the Pharisaic point of view; so that neither the portraiture of Pharisaic piety nor yet that of Sadducæan wickedness must be taken _au pied de la lettre_. The general point of view of the book has been well summed up by Buchanan Gray thus: “It is the Pharisaic piety that breathes through the Psalms; it is their opposition to the worldly, non-Davidic monarchy, and to the illegitimate high-priesthood of the ruling Hasmonæan king, Aristobulus, that finds expression here; the Messianic hope (especially xvii. 23 ff.), the firm belief in a future life which characterizes them later, and renders them naturally political quietists and indifferent to political schemes, are already conspicuous here. And, again, the later attitude of the Pharisees in the matter of free-will as described by Josephus (_Bell. Jud._, II, viii. 14)—these ascribe all to fate and to God, and yet allow that to act as is right, or the contrary, is principally in the power of men: although fate does co-operate in every action—is almost exactly paralleled by two passages in the Psalms, v. 4, ix. 6.”[296]

(_e_) THE BOOK OF JUBILEES

[LITERATURE.—Schürer, II, iii. pp. 134-141, German ed., III, pp. 371-384; Littmann, in Kautzsch, II, pp. 31-119; Charles, _The Book of Jubilees_ (1902); Leszynsky, _Op. cit._, pp. 179-236; Charles, in _The Apocr. and Pseudep. of the O.T._, II, pp. 1-82.]

Although this book is also known as “The Apocalypse of Moses”[297] (Syncellus), it is not an apocalyptic work in the proper sense of the word. It purports, however, to have been given through angels to Moses on Mount Sinai, and can, therefore, in a certain sense be described as an apocalypse; but it scarcely touches upon the themes which form the main content of the apocalyptic works proper. It is also called the “Little Genesis,” as it follows the narrative as given in the Book of Genesis and Exodus i.-xii., but this is divided into fixed periods of time, or “Jubilees,” hence its name; for this word is directly derived from the Hebrew term _Jobel_ which, according to most modern scholars, means “ram” or “ram’s horn”; the year of Jubilee thus means literally “the year of ram’s horn”; the fiftieth year was so called because it was proclaimed by the blowing of rams’ horns (see Lev. xxv.). “As the author seeks to reproduce the history of primitive times _in the spirit of his own day_, he deals with the biblical text in a very free fashion. Many things that did not happen to interest him, or that he considered objectionable, were either omitted or altered, while others were still further amplified by the addition of numerous particulars of one kind or another” (Schürer, _Op. cit._, II, iii. p. 136).

It is impossible to fix the exact date of the book with any certainty, but that it belongs at the latest to the second half of the first century B.C. may be unhesitatingly stated. That it was written by a Palestinian Pharisee is the opinion of most scholars; it is true that it is strongly legalistic in character, so much so that the Messianic Kingdom is conceived of as the outcome of a gradual process which is bound up with the study of the Law. The writer, moreover, greatly extols the Sabbath, Circumcision, the dietary laws, the laws of purification, etc.; its strongly marked spirit of exclusiveness is also said to betray its Pharisaic origin. But with the exception of the last point there is nothing in all this which forbids us to believe in Sadducæan authorship (see above, Chapter IV, § ii. (_b_)). Leszynsky seems to us to have proved his contention that the author was a Sadducee, who ascribed Mosaic authorship to the book for the purpose of obtaining the needful authority for Sadducæan views concerning the Law. The details of his argument would take us too far afield; he discusses the question with much learning on pp. 181-234 of his book.

That the book was originally written in Hebrew admits of no doubt; no part of this has come down to us, however. The Greek version, made from the Hebrew, exists only in fragments found in the writings of some ancient authors. The Ethiopic version, which was made from the Greek, exists almost in its entirety; of the Latin version, also made from the Greek, about one-fourth is extant. The importance of the book, in the words of Charles, lies in the fact that it is “not only indispensable to students of the New Testament, and of the history of the Pharisaic movement: it is likewise of first-class importance as a witness to the readings of the Hebrew text of Genesis about the beginning of the Christian era” (_Encycl. Bibl._, I, 230). As we incline, however, to the belief in its Sadducæan authorship, we regard it as important for the history of the antagonism between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and their respective teaching, rather than merely for the history of the Pharisaic movement.

(_f_) THE ASSUMPTION OF MOSES

[LITERATURE.—Schürer, II, iii. pp. 73-83, German ed., III, pp. 294-305; Clemen, in Kautzsch, II, pp. 311-331; Charles, _The Assumption of Moses_ (1897), and in _The Apocr. and Pseudep. of the O.T._, II, pp. 407-424; Leszynsky, _Op. cit._, pp. 267-273.]

The numerous references in early Christian literature to apocryphal books of Moses makes it clear that several well-known books of the kind must once have been in existence. The different titles of these books which are mentioned are a little confusing; we have just seen that the “Apocalypse of Moses” was one of the names given to the Book of Jubilees; we shall see below (§ _j_) that an “Apocalypse of Moses” is more or less parallel with the “Life of Adam and Eve.” Mention is made of a “Book of secret words of Moses” and of the “Assumption of Moses” in the commentary of Gelasius Cyzicenus on the acts of the council of Nicæa; Origen (_De princip._, III, ii. 1) speaks of the book called the “Ascension of Moses,” and Didymus, in writing on the epistle of Jude, refers to the “Assumption of Moses”; and more than once the “Testament of Moses” is mentioned. It is probable that these two latter are both included in the book we are considering, but that they were originally distinct and of different authorship. The book as a whole was written at the very beginning of the first century A.D.; this is the opinion of most authorities, based upon fairly clear indications in the book itself (see Charles in the _Encycl. Bibl._, I, 235). The author, according to Charles, “was a Pharisee, and a Pharisee who was the antithesis of the Zealot exactly in those respects in which Pharisaism differed from Zealotism. His book was designed as a protection against the growing secularization of the Pharisaic party through its adoption of political ideals and popular Messianic beliefs”; elsewhere Charles says[298]: “He was a Pharisee of a fast-disappearing type, recalling in all respects the Chasid of the early Maccabæan times, and upholding the old traditions of quietude and resignation.” Leszynsky, on the other hand, is inclined to believe that the author was a Sadducee; his arguments, however, are not convincing.[299]

The book contains what purports to be a prediction of the future history of Israel which had been revealed to Moses, and which he in turn reveals to Joshua. It is, therefore, as a whole not an apocalyptic book in the technical sense, though part of it does distinctly come under this designation; this is clear from Chapter x., which is written in poetry, and in the familiar apocalyptic strain; it tells of the coming of divine rule upon earth, when sorrow shall be taken away, and wrath shall come upon the enemies of God; the signs of the end are graphically described.

The book was originally written in Hebrew, though some scholars contend for an Aramaic original. Only part of the book has so far been recovered and this is in Latin, which was, however, made from a Greek translation of the original.

(_g_) THE ASCENSION OF ISAIAH

[LITERATURE.—Schürer, II, iii. pp. 141-146, German ed., pp. 386-393; Beer, in Kautzsch, II, pp. 119-127; Charles, _The Ascension of Isaiah_ (1900); Charles, _The Martyrdom of Isaiah_, in _The Apocr. and Pseudep. of the O.T._, II, pp. 155-162. Burkitt, _Jewish and Christian Apocalypses_, pp. 45 ff.]

In ancient ecclesiastical writings mention is made of three apocryphal books about Isaiah, viz. the “Ascension of Isaiah,” the “Martyrdom of Isaiah,” and the “Vision of Isaiah.” It is possible that the “Ascension” is only another name for the “Vision,” for in